f Time to me. I
gazed again out the window. The change of outline was very slight. I
could distinguish where the ocean came against the curving line of
shore, and saw a blurred vista of gray forests spreading out over the
land. And then I could distinguish the rivers, and a circular open
stretch of water, landlocked. A bay!

"Mary, look!" I cried. "The harbor--the rivers! See, we are on an
island!"

It made our hearts pound. Out of the chaos, out of the vast reaches of
past Time, it seemed that we were coming home. More than a vague
familiarity was in this panorama now. Here was the little island which
soon was to be called Manhattan. Our window faced the west. A river
showed off there--a gray gash with wall-like cliffs. The sea had
swung, and was behind us to the east.

Familiar space! It was growing into the form we had known it. Our cage
was poised near the south-central part of the island. We seemed to be
on a slight rise of ground. There were moments when the gray quivering
outlines of forest trees loomed around us; then they melted down and
were replaced by others.

A primeval forest, here, solid upon this island and across the narrow
waters; solid upon the mainland.

What strange animals were here, roaming these dark primeval glades?
What animals, with the smaller stamp of modernity, were pressing here
for supremacy? As I gazed westward I could envisage great herds of
bison roaming, a lure to men who might come seeking them as food.

* * * * *

And men were coming. 3,000 B. C., then 2,000 B. C. I think no men were
here yet; and to me there was a great imaginative appeal in this
backward space. The New World, it was soon to be called. And it was
six thousand years, at the least, behind the Hemisphere of the east.

Egypt, now, with no more than a shadowy distant heritage from the
beast, was flourishing. In Europe, Hellenic culture soon would
blossom. In this march of events, the great Roman Empire was
impending.

1,000 B. C. Men were coming to this backward space. The way from Asia
was open. Already the Mongoloid tribes, who had crossed where in my
day was the Bering Strait, were cut off from the Old World. And they
spread east and south, hunting the bison.

And now Christ was born. The turning point in the spiritual
development of mankind....

To me, another brief interval. The intricate events of man's upward
struggle were transpiring in Europe, Asia and Africa. The c